Recently, there is a demand for further improvement of a transmission rate and a further extension of transmission distance because of a development of information society. A signal transferred on a network is changing from electricity to light.
There is an optical transceiver module disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 2002-328269, as a communication device that uses an optical signal, has large capacity, and performs high-speed communication. FIG. 1 illustrates a structure of an optical transceiver module 900 based on the prior art.
As shown in FIG. 1, the optical transceiver module 900 has a housing 901, a bezel 902, two optical connectors 903, a PCB (Printed Circuit Board) connector 904 and a rail 905. The optical transceiver module 900 is attached to an information-processing device (hereinafter referred to a host device) such as a sever device, a network communication device (a switch, a router or the like) with the rail 905.
The PCB connector 904 is what is called a card edge type of connector, and is coupled directly to a motherboard (a system board) of an information-processing device. The PCB connector 904 is configured so as to be compliant with a generic XAUI (10 Gigabit Attachment Unit Interface). That is, the optical transceiver module 900 is coupled to the information-processing device through the XAUI in the prior art.
In the housing 901, there are provided a transmitter and a receiver not in shown in FIG. 1. Data fed from the information-processing device are, therefore, converted into optical signals in the transmitter and are transferred to an optical cable (not in shown in FIG. 1) coupled to the optical connector 903. In addition, the optical signals fed from the optical cable are converted into electrical signals in the receiver and are fed into the information-processing device through the PCB connector 904.
However, there is a problem that a communication device for transmitting or receiving optical signals such as the transmitter and the receiver mentioned above is expensive and lacks in generality compared to a communication device for transmitting or receiving electrical signals.
On the other hand, a specification, in particular a transmission distance, achieved in an optical communication is not always necessary and there is a case where an electrical communication solves the problem, if an information-processing device such as a server device is provided in a central area of a building when a system such as a LAN (Local Area Network) or a WAN (Wide Area Network) is structured.
Various aspects of this invention have been made in view of the above-mentioned circumstances. The present invention provides a transceiver module that is capable of performing a high-rate communication, and satisfies the demand at a moderate cost in a case where short distance communication is enough for transmitting or receiving signals.